Thursday 7 September 2017

The Jacob Rees-Mogg Interview

I was very pleased to see a British parliamentarian standing up for the rights of the Church and for Catholicism in the public square, having watched Jacob Rees-Mogg's appearance on Good Morning Britain. For bearing the heat and not fainting for fear, for refusing to surrender to the bullying, emotional blackmail attempts of his interviewers he should indeed be cheered.

However, I am equally pleased that Dr Joseph Shaw has charitably pointed out that some of the reasoning Jacob Rees-Mogg provides to his interlocutors was neither particularly Catholic, nor particular logical. Dr Joseph says, I think, what should be said, but I would like to add some thoughts of my own.

St Paul's condemnation of homosexuality is clear in his Epistle to the Romans, numero uno, and while St Paul has fallen out of favour in recent times with the world - and in Rome, also, it would appear - the pillar of the Church makes very clear that 'gay sex' (I can't believe adults are talking about gay sex on TV first thing in the morning while some people are having breakfast but welcome to the 21st century) is indeed sinful - contrary to the divine law - but also contrary to the natural law.

Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. 

It is said that arguments against homosexual actions in the first instance (before we even get to the subject of marriage) are rejected if they are composed within a religious framework, because if society is irreligious, or ignorant of religion, then it cannot be understood or accepted. It is interesting that St Paul was employing the argument from nature a long, long time ago under the influence of the Holy Spirit, since that which men could not fathom purely from the strength of a religious truth, men could fathom from the natural law. We must note that God respects reason and it is a gift of God to use it and that while the supernatural may cause us to accept that which appears to contradict it (like Resurrection after Death), the moral law is an entirely different matter.

Yes, Rees-Mogg's argument defending marriage from the position that the Sacrament of Marriage in the Catholic Church is inadequate and it should be pointed out, not least because Catholics have long argued in the public square that the Church recognises that marriage of itself is not possessed by the Church, or the State, it is inscribed in the natural law. Within the Church, marriage between two baptised persons is a Sacrament, because Christ has raised it to such. Not all bread is the Body of Christ, but bread becomes the Body of Christ when a Priest pronounces the words of Consecration over the species and by such it is changed in substance. Likewise, not all marriages are Sacramental. It is not possible, it is illogical indeed, to argue against same-sex marriage 'because marriage is a Sacrament', unless, perhaps, your entire audience is Catholic.

Marriage is a natural institution. It cannot be altered by Church or by State.. It requires one man and one woman. In the Church it is given a supernatural character, conferring divine grace on the spouses by means of the Sacrament of Marriage. Marriage between two persons of the same-sex is not marriage, since those contracting the arrangement are not composed of one male and one female. Same-sex marriage is a lie, a fraud and a sham, contrary to reason, to justice, to nature itself and, yes, to will of the Creator.

What is same-sex marriage? It is the veneer of authenticity, legal credibility, performed in order to publicly legitimise sodomy and numerous homosexual acts. It has nothing, if anything to do with 'love'. The State has never recognised 'love'. It has only recognised marriage. Even when a man sacrifices his life for his country, he is never saluted for his 'love' but for his sacrifice even duty. 'Same-sex marriage, is, however, the 'law of the land' because the State calls it marriage, even when it is nothing like marriage. Herein, I would argue, lies the secret strength of Jacob Rees-Mogg should he choose to embrace it. Mr Rees-Mogg! Expose the lies! Speak the truth!

The Mogg interview, and its aftermath, shows us patently that dissent from this secular teaching will not be tolerated. Whether you argue your case rationally and reasonably, politely or charitably, or offensively, it really doesn't matter to the powerful lobby and to the 'liberal' media. If you don't burn incense on this matter you're 'toast'. Except you are not. Not really. Not if you really mean it. What people - citizens of the United Kingdom - I am certain of this - are really getting sick and tired of is:


BEING TOLD WHAT TO THINK!


This was a defining feature of the Brexit vote and of the Trump victory. Mogg-Momentum will gather real momentum when he makes it very clear that despite the Government's law on same-sex marriage and its inhuman, barbaric practise of permitting the wholesale slaughter of the unborn for any reason at all, even for mere 'inconvenience's sake', Britain remains, just about, a free country in which you can hold, profess and speak your beliefs in public and their offensive nature does not revoke that freedom. Nor should your beliefs separate you from your political party or society itself, certainly not the public square, unless you want to live in Communist Britain. The vast majority of the United Kingdom - no matter their creed or political beliefs - accept the principle of freedom of thought and freedom of speech. The issue of homosexuality, marriage and abortion all touch deeply on the moral law and are grounded firmly in the natural law but they can be articulated publicly because we are free citizens not subject to State interference in our beliefs and conscience!

The replacement of the moral law, the replacement of the natural law's latest victim - and it was always going to be this way - is the freedom to think and to say that 2 + 2 = 4, not, as Fr Antonio Spadaro S.J would have us believe, 5! If Jacob Rees-Mogg is prepared to stand up in public as a  Catholic then let him defend the principle that should be very politically charged right now! No parliamentarian - though I don't doubt that he may and should try - is going to persuade this nation of the immoral nature of abortion and same-sex marriage. However, there are so many people in this country who are concerned that the media and the State and an all-pervasive power operating within nearly every sphere of society will not tolerate either the potent operation of human conscience or the freedom to speak your mind, even if what you believe is offensive to many. 

The valiant effort of Rees-Mogg - for I know that he tried his best - will resonate more with people if he recognises that the ability to articulate your beliefs are what makes for a democracy. It is, in fact, the only reason that the powerful abortion and gay lobbies were able to do what they have done - become mainstream and acceptable, even if what they do and promote are deeply offensive to God and profoundly unacceptable.  Now that they are in positions of power they would deny that right to all those - religious or not - who find their vision of human life unacceptable and who believe that a rampant homosexual culture, and 200,000 abortions a year, as well the prevelance of a shocking mindset that tolerates everything except dissent from the liberal secular worldview, brings shame and disgrace upon this once great country.

We need people, yes even politicians, to say that if an interveiwer is going to pin him down about gay sex at 9 o'clock in the morning (!!), then yes, gay sex is, in his belief, as the Church defines it, very sinful indeed and completely immoral and contrary to nature. But let's be really honest and make that teaching plain. Sodomy is a sin that cries out to Heaven for vengeance. So is abortion. Same-sex marriage (and the sexual acts it entails) and abortion, too, are completely immoral. But more than this, we need these men and women to come forward and say that the last time they looked, this country is a free country and you can believe that 'gay sex' - for is it even sex? - is sinful and say it and the day you cannot say that is the day that freedom itself dies. For as Orwell said, freedom is 'the freedom to say that 2 + 2 = 4!' Who on Earth is Piers Morgan and his lady side-kick to imply that this view is repugnant and may not be held by a British citizen!? What have we come to!? May God give strength to Jacob, for it is God who gave victories to Jacob.  Let us all say what we think about the issues touched upon by the Mogg interview. The day we cannot say them, is the day this country dies! We must fight for this freedom, the freedom to speak the truth, now not merely in the society in which we live, but also within the Church Herself.


17 comments:

Simon Platt said...

Hear! Hear!

Karen said...

Yes, Bravo to Mr. Rees-Mogg!! He did try his best at the moment. Who could, under fire from two pit bull liberals, rise to the occasion and actually stay unemotional. That is the key - to speak your mind unemotionally. IF they get your emotions up, they will win.

Hilary White over at the Remnant just wrote an excellent article on debating. I realize your point here is more about free speech and also natural law. But in order to get our voices heard, or at least to attempt to speak truth to power, we have to use certain techniques. The left uses about 4 or 5 phrases over and over and with them they always win the argument. This is because the conservative/religious/right has not learned the art of debating and without emotion. The key is always bring them back to the central issue and ask them to explain why such and such is true. Over and over and over until they can't really explain it. We must always keep bringing the debate back to the main issue and not let them get us off track.

Please read her excellent article, Tea With the Curate part 4, which is up on their website right now.

Thank you. This was an excellent post!

www.banneroftruth.org said...

As we used to say in the Sixties, Mr Rees-Mogg is adept at 'keeping his cool'.
His father was terrific too.
The other day I read that Roman Catholics are the largest minority that have to put up with verbal abuse and, indeed, open contempt.
Especially from the opinion-formers at the BBC and The Guardian, not to mention the entertainments industry.
In Scotland I worship at a (Gospel Standard) Reformed Baptist Church.
A fellow worshipper, who started the Christian Party, said there was no appetite among Scottish churches to stand up for Biblical truths.
The status-quo churches, such as the Church of Scotland, are desperate to appease the savage forces of secularism.
Some years ago the local authorities in Edinburgh approved of two homosexuals adopting a baby, the mother being incapable of looking after her own child.
The grandparents wished to adopt their own grandchild, but were considered too old.
When the grandfather expressed his unhappiness at the child being brought up by two 'gay men', he was told by a senior social worker that he might never see his grandson again.
Grandparents have no rights.
I think it is cruel and morally evil to deny a child a mother, for we know there are many loving women desperate to adopt.
In spite of what a few psychologists say, a child responds to a mother's love in a particular way.
To say it makes no difference if the surrogate parents are two men is humbug.
Only the 'rights' of homosexuals count.
They want a baby as a lifestyle accessory while babbling all the while about 'love'.
Politicians and the BBC have connived in the evil of gay adoption, and the victims are the children.
Our post-Christian society has descended into a kind of madness.
Secularists are as determined to destroy Christianity as the Communists were.
Only they do it with an air of bogus self-righteousness.
They are like Mr Toad in The Wind in the Willows.

J Haggerty

Liam Ronan said...

Lighten up on Rees-Mogg, Bones. He exercised sound prudential judgement under the circumstances (I gather he anticipated he was to be questioned about Brexit), unabashedly and unashamedly cited his Catholic convictions, and brought those hitherto taboo PC subjects into the glare of the spotlight for public discussion.

As for St. Paul, I offer:

"As unto little ones in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for you were not able as yet. But neither indeed are you now able; for you are yet carnal."
1 Corinthians 3:2

"To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak. I became all things to all men, that I might save all." 1 Corinthians 9:22

I thought Rees-Mogg was superb and he made me proud to be a Catholic.

Liam Ronan said...

Following on my earlier comment, Bones, recall too this passage:

"He shall not contend, nor cry out, neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets.

The bruised reed he shall not break: and smoking flax he shall not extinguish: till he send forth judgment unto victory.

And in his name the Gentiles shall hope." Matthew 12: 19-21

I think Rees-Mogg's manner reflected this attitude of Our Lord's.

Catholic Mission said...

SEPTEMBER 8, 2017

England's Trump : Could Jacob Rees-Mogg MP proclaim the Social Reign of Christ the King based on Vatican Council II ( Feeneyite) and the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus ( Feeneyite) ?
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2017/09/englands-trump-could-jacob-rees-mogg-mp.html

Mary Kay said...

I am trying to recall if I have ever heard a politician here in the States react so forthrightly. I believe Rees-Mogg's response showed true strength of character and Faith, because I believe he was caught off-guard, yet defended the Faith firmly. I do agree with Dr. Shaw and Hilary White that it is time for all of us to memorize some useful responses because we will need them if we are not to be shut down by the standard accusatory questions.
Thank you for this post, Laurence!

Blotto said...

You expect the interviewers to badger Rees-Mogg about his upholding of church teaching but what's really pathetic is when you're unfortunate enough to come across an article like the one in today's London Standard by Catherine Pepinster, former editor of the Tablet (alarm bells). In this muddled and typically woolly piece, Pepinster suggests Rees-Mogg highlight the 'eugenic' implications of abortions based on disability and 'gender selection via termination' but then goes on to call the refusal to permit a woman made pregnant following rape to have an abortion 'an act of violence'. Her justification for holding a view contrary to Church teaching interestingly comes straight from the top. She declares 'Pope Francis, in his teaching document on love...urges Catholics to be compassionate and merciful'. She also writes that she 'baulks at Rees-Mogg's views on sex'. In other words, the Church can teach what it wants but Catherine is sophisticated enough to make her own mind up, thank you very much. As they'd say in New York, "She's one confused lady".

Liam Ronan said...

I must amend my earlier enthusiasms regarding Rees-Moggs grasp of the Catholic Faith.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/09/jacob-rees-mogg-oppose-same-sex-marriage-go-gay-wedding/

Please read today's 09 September 2017 Telegraph (link above) reporting JRM's take on same-sex marriage; homosexuality being in Catholic theology a sin that cries out to God for vengeance and condemns the participant in such practices (wedding guest or no) to hell.

If Rees-Mogg would happily attend a gay wedding would he happily give a friend a lift to the abortion clinic?

Sad world this.

Nicolas Bellord said...

Just remember how Jacob Rees-Mogg and his colleagues were made to resign from the Board of the Hospital of St John & St Elizabeth by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor because they were going to implement a strict adherence to Catholic ethics in particular banning referrals for abortion. No doubt Cormac's supporters have made sure that the truth is hidden e.g. on wikipedia we have a total distortion of the truth: "In February 2008 he ordered the board of St John and St Elizabeth's Hospital, a Catholic hospital partly funded by the NHS, to resign because its general practice prescribed the morning-after pill and issued abortion referrals".

If I had been Jacob I would have felt so pissed off at this treatment as to abandon the Church.

Cormac's nominees Guthrie and Allen gutted the Code of Ethics removing the ban on referrals for abortion and Cormac gave it his blessing. Pray for all poor souls in Purgatory.

F. Carleton said...

A comment from Down under. I'm a longstanding admirer of Jacob Rees-Mogg as he is an authentic conservative in a party that largely isn't and includes too many Blairite Tories (thanks Peter Hitchens). But while I applaud his defence of Christian marriage Dr. Shaw has properly identified inadequacy in his TV breakfast morning comments.
But it remains remarkable that any prominent lay Catholic after 50 years or so of post Vatican II ambiguous and ambivalent Catholicism by flaccid national hierarchies can present a Catholic viewpoint in public. In Australia where the"same-sex marriage" controversies are presently ranging pending a postal vote the Australian bishops have remained crassly and cravenly evasive. It's also well to recall that the incompetence of too many bishops internationally has facilitated the infestation of the Catholic priesthood with homosexuality.

Catholic Mission said...


He would still need to affirm Feeneyite extra ecclesiam nulla salus to make sense of the Church's teaching on Vatican Council II. the non separation of Church and State, the proclamation of the Social Reign of Christ the King etc. This was the past ecclesiology of St. Thomas More.

SEPTEMBER 12, 2017
SSPX and sedevacantist websites consider invisible for us BOD, BOB and I.I as being visible exceptions to Feeneyite EENS : theology at the Catholic Identity Confc.
http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.it/2017/09/sspx-and-traditionalist-website.html

www.banneroftruth.org said...

It would be a good thing if Roman Catholics and Reformed church people could stand together on the impossibility of their attendance at all same-sex 'unions'.
To attend would be to insult the Lord because marriage between a man and a woman is his creation.
This non-attendance must also extend to the celebrations that follow such 'unions'.
My guess is that the next generation of active homosexuals and lesbians won't be remotely interested in getting 'married', so the issue will be dead 20 years from now.
The churches are being torn apart for a passing fad.
Already same-sex 'marriages' are ending in divorce.
Meanwhile spare a thought for Catholics and Biblical Protestants in the USA where things are getting very ugly indeed.
The president of the Moody Bible Institute has told Christians, 'Prepare to stand alone.'
The Bible is no longer welcome in the public forum and may never be again, he says.
A leading 'gay activist' said, 'We will close churches which disagree with us.'

J Haggerty

Nicolas Bellord said...

banneroftruth: In Portugal they had same-sex 'marriage' for considerably longer than in the UK. A registrar, whom I know, told me they now do more divorces of these 'marriages' than new ones. I wonder how long before all this turns sour and people wake up.

www.banneroftruth.org said...

I did not know about Portugal, Mr Bellord, so thanks for the information.
I heard a Free Church of Scotland minister say that we should never sound bitter, censorious or sanctimonious in the way we conduct ourselves on this issue.
We should tell people that we are unable to attend a same-sex ceremony because we are under commandment from God not to do so.
Many sensitive and decent people are in same-sex relationships.
I need only think of Benjamin Britten, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop or the Australian novelist Patrick White, all of whom were homosexual. People of immense talent.
Heterosexual culture is sinful.
None of us can boast, we are sinners every one.
Christianity calls for a complete rebirth of the person.
We have to lay down our weapons of warfare against God, and receive his blessed Son.
Jesus Christ accepts us as we are, but he does not leave us as we are.
The other day, watching Daniel Dennett on YouTube, I realised that atheists are troubled in their unbelief.
Mr Dennett needs the Gospel, and somewhere in his heart he knows it.

J Haggerty




Liam Ronan said...

@J Haggerty,

You observe "Many sensitive and decent people are in same-sex relationships."

Such sensitive and decent relationships are a direct, immediate, and continuing affront to God.

www.banneroftruth.org said...

The world insults God every day and God in his mercy permits the world to continue.
So you are right to say that sin is an affront to God, Mr Ronan.
The United Kingdom is largely pagan. So is the media.
Most people I know do not recognise the reality of sin, nor the need for a Saviour.
What are the best ways to evangelise?
What are the best pastoral ways of talking to people who have no concept of sin?
These are the big questions.
A hippy in California said that the late Francis Schaeffer spoke to him with respect and understanding.
Francis Schaeffer was what the media would dub a Biblical fundamentalist.
Yet his approach was always person-centred.
Surely we can take the same approach with gay, bisexual and transgendered people?
Yes, we must tell them that the way they live is an affront to God.
But we respect their sensitivity and decency.
The Francis Schaeffer approach is Biblical.
It doesn't leave out God's wrath.
Nor the suffering of Jesus in his sin-atoning sacrifice on Calvary.
Once Francis Schaeffer wept at a conference when he spoke about souls going to hell.
We should be as equally concerned for the lost.
John MacArthur says that it is not the sin God sends to hell, but the sinner.
(See 'Does God hate the sin but not the sinner?' John MacArthur.) YouTube.

J Haggerty

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